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Envision Shabbat 360 UAlbany 2020

The theme for Shabbat 360 at UAlbany this year is “Envision the Possibilities”, so we’re going to try to come up with a bunch of Envision-themed concepts and messages in this Spring 2020 week leading up to Shabbat 360 2020, Read the rest

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Tevet 20 & 21 – Two Family Yartzeits

It so happens that we have two family yartzeits (annivesaries of passing) on two back-to-back Tevet dates, and since our children don’t know much about these ancestors (their great-great-grandparents) thought it would be meaningful to share something about them, and … Read the rest

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Random Insights & Lessons from our Florida Roadtrip 2019

THE PIGGLY WIGGLY, SOMEWHERE IN GEORGIA

Somewhere deep in Georgia we stopped to get some vegetables and stuff for our picnic supper. It was a small town, maybe on the more basic side. Google Maps took us to a Piggly … Read the rest

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Dreidel Operators Manual

a humorous twist on Dreidel (the Chanukah toy) by Rabbi Israel Rubin, (originally published in the syndicated Holiday Guide family of Newspapers)

A HIGH-TECH DREIDEL?

In a world of 3-D video games and surfing the Internet, kids may look skeptically … Read the rest

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A Yud Tes Kislev Story about Shema

There’s a YudTesKislev (19th Kislev, day of Alter Rebbe’s release from Czarist prison and known as the Rosh Hashanah of Chassidus) story about a friendly prison officer smuggling out a reassuring message of Alter Rebbe’s wellbeing from Czarist prison to … Read the rest

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Square (and Circle)

This simple (but brilliant!) picture book by Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen is incredibly rich and deep. I think it is one of the great children’s books that is a wonderful parable to illustrate an aspect of a fundamental Chassidic … Read the rest

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The Tightrope Challenge

Reb Mendel Futerfas was a legendary Chabad chassid who spent a decade in Soviet prisons and labor camp gulags. He tells a story about how the prisoners would sit around at night and share from their past lives, their areas … Read the rest

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Our Response to the Words in the Snow

Many have asked about our response to the very disturbing anti-Israel words on the pristine snowy fountain this morning. Since early this morning we have been in touch with the University administration, University Police, and Jewish student leaders and other … Read the rest

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Animal Soul vs. Yetzer Hora

Some of you might be familiar with the term “Yetzer Hora” or evil inclination. The Talmud describes the two voices inside our heads: Yetzer Tov and Yetzer Hora, the former tries to influence us towards good, the latter towards bad. In … Read the rest

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Caring for & Working with Animals

This year (2019) for the Shabbat of Noach we did an animals theme, and asked several students to share their personal experiences caring for and working with animals. It was quite beautiful and surprising what students shared:

Rachel K. – Read the rest

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